Re: Doraja (was: Re: TRANS: a haiku)

On Mon, 17 Apr 2000, Matt Pearson wrote:

> Please describe how this new agreement morphology works.
> What, for instance, do "ss" and "itr" stand for?  How does
> agreement interact with argument fronting?  (I seem to recall
> that Doraja is VSO, but with preverbal pronominal clitics and
> rather free argument fronting.)
>
Glad you asked.  The basic story is this: Doraja verbs take an
inflectional suffix which indicates: 1) for transitive verbs, the number
and animacy of the subject and the number of the object; 2) for
intransitive verbs, the number of the subject.

(1) For transitive verbs, the full paradigm of this suffix goes a little
something like this:

                number of dir. object

                    sg      pl

  subj. sg human    -0      -e

        sg non      -u      -y

        pl human    -sa     -se

        pl non      -i      -i


... where "non" means "non-human."  When glossing these morphemes, I
use the following abbreviations (any suggestions on how to do this more
clearly are elicited):

        sh = singular human subject
        ph = plural human subject
        sn = singular non-human subject
        pn = plural non-human subject
        sg = singular object
        pl = plural object

Examples:

        erin-0    kos tjom
        see-sh:sg man dog
        A man sees a dog.

        erin-sa   in-kos tjom
        see-ph:sg pl-man dog
        Some men see a dog.

        erin-e    kos in-tjom
        see-sh:pl man pl-dog
        A man sees some dogs.

        erin-u    tjom kos
        see-sn:sg dog  man
        A dog sees a man.

        erin-y    tjom in-kos
        see-sn:pl dog  pl-man
        A dog sees some men.

        erin-i in-tjom in-kos
        see-pn pl-dog  pl-man
        Some dogs see some men.

Additionally, there is a 'passive' suffix /m/ (/ym/ after consonants)
which occurs with transitive verbs when a fronted NP is non-subject.
Recall that in Doraja fronting of the topic/old information is
obligatory (a phenomenon which I translate somewhat inaccurately below
using the article 'the').  Below I give three examples to illustrate
this behaviour:

        baona-u     pura miki
        chase-sn:sg cat  mouse
        A cat chases a mouse. (no movement)

        pura baona-u     miki
        cat  chase-sn:sg mouse
        The cat chases a mouse. (_pura_ = topic and subject; no passive
suffix needed)

        miki  baona-u-m        pura
        mouse chase-sn:sg-PASS cat
        A cat chases the mouse (or) the mouse was chased by the cat
(_miki_ = topic and object, thus requiring the suffix /m/)

(2) For intransitive verbs, there are two agreement suffixes which agree
in number with the subject of the verb.  They are:

        singular subject: -u
        plural subject: -y

These are, in fact, the same suffixes used with transitive verbs to
indicate a non-human subject acting on singular and plural objects,
respectively.  This means that, in a manner of speaking, Doraja appears
to have ergative characteristics (!).  Some examples:

        dae agua-e     in-alan
        1sg grow-sh:pl pl-flower
        I grow flowers.

        in-alan    agua-y
        pl-flowers grow-intr:pl
        The flowers grow.

        rae jasa-se    in-aidor
        1pl sing-ph:pl pl-song
        We sing songs.

        rae jasa-y
        1pl sing-intr:pl
        We sing.

I'm still working out the implications of this entire agreement system.
I like it -- it certainly frees up word order significantly, and gets
rid of the whole _ui_ particle business that was causing me to wake up
in a cold sweat; but I'm concerned that it might be unnaturalistic
or perhaps even ambiguous in some cases.  Feedback is welcome.

Later,
Adam